tleb_ (u/tleb_) - Readit News

tleb_ commented on The Linux Kernel Looks to “Bite the Bullet” in Enabling Microsoft C Extensions phoronix.com/news/Linux-6... · Posted by u/keyle

Quarrel · 4 months ago

It certainly seems to me that using this would eliminate 75% or so of the objections to it.

For this use case, at least, it feels like a CS version of racism. MSFT is bad, so no MSFT.

It largely clears up an idiosyncrasy from the evolution of C.

(but, as someone that briefly worked on plan9 in 1995/96, I like your idea :)

tleb_ · 4 months ago

Do you have references to objections? I couldn't find any on the lkml threads.

tleb_ commented on The Linux Kernel Looks to “Bite the Bullet” in Enabling Microsoft C Extensions phoronix.com/news/Linux-6... · Posted by u/keyle

fuhsnn · 4 months ago

> though some may feel the wrong way around Microsoft C behavior being permitted

The same extension can be enabled with `-fplan9-extensions`, might be more appealing to some!

tleb_ · 4 months ago

-fplan9-extensions adds even more, it is not an alias: https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-15.2.0/gcc/Unnamed-Fields...

One of the link of past discussions was from Apr 2018 and discusses it. At that time GCC -fplan9-extensions support was too recent (gcc-4.6) to be considered. https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20180419152817.GD25406@bombadil...

Now the reasoning isn't present in the patch but it probably is because they want step increments and -fms-extensions is a small-ish first step. Maybe -fplan9-extensions could make sense later, in a few years.

tleb_ commented on The challenge of maintaining curl lwn.net/Articles/1034966/... · Posted by u/signa11

bluGill · 6 months ago

I've often asked how my company could support them. Most I ask don't understand the question. Those that do only point out that I can contribute code changes - which I have but rarely as we pick good projects that meet our needs: there rarely are bugs or features we would care about enough to not do our regular work.

what would be nice is a non profit that would take money and distribute it to the projects we use - likely with some legal checking that they are legal (whatever that means). FSF is the only one I know of that does generic development and they have ideas that companies generally oppose and so are out

tleb_ · 6 months ago

The Linux Foundation (LF) is sort of this. A non-profit aimed at corporate members to sponsor work on many open-source projects (~900).

tleb_ commented on Precomputation jamesg.blog/2024/11/01/pr... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

tleb_ · a year ago

> For example, my blog search engine, which indexes on the order of 500,000+ words across 1,000+ documents, can return results in < 10ms because the indices can be queried incredibly quickly.

This is odd. Let's do a back-of-the-envelope estimation. DDR4 bandwidth is at least 12GB/s. 500k words is around 3MB. So, reading this amount takes 0.25ms, ignoring CPU caches. It sounds reasonable to assume the matching algorithm can run in-between that speed and 40 times slower for the 10ms mark.

This is one example where precomputation is probably not needed: bruteforce if N is small enough.

tleb_ commented on The Linux audio stack demystified (and more) blog.rtrace.io/posts/the-... · Posted by u/ruffyx64

probablybetter · 2 years ago

The "mess" of Linux audio is due to ONE reason: single-client ALSA driver model.

every other layer is a coping mechanism and the plurality and divergence of the FOSS community responds in various ways: - Jack - PulseAudio - PipeWire

I am unclear why Jaroslav Kyocera chose to make ALSA single-client, but Apples CoreAudio multi-client driver model is the right way to do digital audio on general-purpose computing devices running multi-tasking OS'es on application processors, in my opinion.

Current issues this article does not address that actually constitute large parts of the "mess" of Linux Audio:

- channel mapping that is not transparent nor clearly assigned anywhere in userspace. (aka, why does my computer insist that my multi-input pro-audio interface is a surround-sound interface? I don't WANT high-pass-filters on the primary L/R pair of channels. I am not USING a subwoofer. WTF)

- the lack of a STANDARD for channel-mapping, vs the Alsa config standards, /etc/asound.conf etc.

- the lack of friendly nomenclature on hardware inputs/outputs for DAW software, whether on the ALSA layer, or some sound-server layer. (not to mention that ALSA calls an 8-channel audio-interface "4 stereo devices")

- probably more, but I can't remember. My current audio production systems have the DAW software directly opening an ALSA device. I cannot listen to audio elsewhere until I quit my DAW. This works and I can set my latency as low as the hardware will allow it.

this is the thing: more than about 10ms latency is unacceptable for audio recording in the multitrack fashion, as one does.

tleb_ · 2 years ago

I disagree.

Applications want to receive/provide a stream (X sample-rate, Y sample format, Z channels) and have it routed to the right destination, that probably is not configured with the same parameters. Having all applications responsible for handling this conversion is not doable. Having the kernel handle this conversion is not a good idea. The routing decision-making needs to be implemented somewhere as well. Let's not ignore the complexity involved in format negotiation as well.

The scenario of a DAW (pro-audio usage) is too specific to generalise from that. That is the only kind of software that really cares about codec configuration, latencies and picking its own routing (or rather to let the user pick routing from the DAW GUI).

tleb_ commented on As an Employee, You Are Disposable (2023) nelson.cloud/as-an-employ... · Posted by u/nelsonfigueroa

tleb_ · 2 years ago

I have trouble understanding how people work for such big companies. Of course if the scale is 1000 employees "the company" cannot care about you; it is an institution not a bunch of people anymore. There is no upper layer to blame, the structure and scale themselves are the culprit.

I decided against that and work in a small company. Work-life balance is nice, we are friends and we all care (at least some bit) about the company itself. That is, because "the company" is us.

tleb_ commented on Engineering for Slow Internet brr.fyi/posts/engineering... · Posted by u/jader201

sethammons · 2 years ago

That is exactly what htmx is and does. Everything is rendered server side and sections of the page that you need to be dynamic and respond to clicks to fetch more data have some added attributes

tleb_ · 2 years ago

I see two differences: (1) the software stack on the server side and (2) I guess there is JS to be sent to the client side for HTMX support(?). Both those things make a difference.

tleb_ commented on Engineering for Slow Internet brr.fyi/posts/engineering... · Posted by u/jader201

geek_at · 2 years ago

Sounds like what would benefit you is a HTMX approach to the web.

tleb_ · 2 years ago

What about plain HTML & CSS for all the websites where this approach is sufficient? Then apply HTMX or any other approach for the few websites that are and need to be dynamic.